


How Soon is Now

by Darkmagyk



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Charmed (TV) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Magic, Witches, canon character deaths in backstory but no one dies in the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 18:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkmagyk/pseuds/Darkmagyk
Summary: If they had four sibling, they would be Charmed. As it was, Arya, Bran, and Sansa survived two brothers, and were merely very powerful witches waging there war against demons.But Sansa still wants something that resembles a life out side of that.And with Jon in Winterfell Manor. Sansa is determined to keep magic a secret.





	How Soon is Now

**Author's Note:**

> Its October, I've been to three Halloween parties. I went to a new age gift shop to buy my friend a Ouija board, I've watched New Charmed, Old Charmed, Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown, and Sabrina in the past weekend. I have witches on the brain. 
> 
> Title from the Iconic theme song from OG Charmed and The Craft, and possibly the only thing new Charmed is really missing.

The witches never got the handsome prince in the end of the fairy tales she’d loved as a child. 

She’d believed and trusted those stories. Had committed herself to their teachings. 

And they were true as it turned out. 

The problem was that Sansa thought she was the princess in the tower, the damsel in distress, the fair maiden. 

She hasn’t known she was the witch. 

None of them had. Growing up in the Old Winterfell Manor had been a thing of sweet childhoods and happy homes. The only magic was in their nanny’s stories, the only monsters were the one’s Arya pretended to be while her brothers saved her. 

Then they had lost Dad and Mom. Then Robb and Rickon. She hadn’t known the signs at the time, but in retrospect, the last three all pointed to one things. They’d been found surrounded by scorch marks and bloodied by wolves that were supernaturally large. 

Only Bran had made it out with his life, but he had lost his legs and some parts of his mind. He’d lost it to the things the demons had awakened inside of them all that day. 

Magic. 

It had been three years. Three years of monsters and fighting. 

Three years of seeing her sister’s face change. Three years of watching her brother’s mind disappear through time. 

Three years of moving things without a touch. 

Three years of consulting an old book they found in the attic that had been locked since Mom died. A book that told of a legend of four siblings more powerful than any others. A sibling with telekinesis, a shapeshifter, a seer, and a sibling with the power to freeze and wield ice. 

Charmed Ones. 

But by the time they’d gotten those powers and learned those things, they were down to three. And there was no Charmed power for them. 

But there was still demons and evil and so very very much magic. 

And without the blessing of being Charmed, they had to settle for fighting twice as hard against that evil. To protect what family they had left. 

And yet she’d tried to lead, if not a normal life, at least something. Something more than fighting and keeping her last siblings alive. 

Her dreams of opening her cafe were out of reach for now. She couldn’t spend the time running that, keeping the house cleaned and fridge stalked, while Arya, who was better at math, made sure that the accountants weren’t screwing them out of their inheritance. And they both protected Bran and each other. 

But she tried to get the occasional lunch with Jeyne or Mya. She tried to volunteer at the humane society. 

And she tried to date. 

But witches didn’t get the guys. 

Because the guy was a demon, or a warlock, or a ghost who needed to move on, or a hellhound pledged to one of the aforementioned demons who sacrificed himself for her, or a fucking angel forbidden to have relationships. 

Or he was a normal guy who freaked out about magic and had to have his memory erased. Or he was a sweet, normal guy who would totally have understood. And was therefore killed by the demon or the warlock or a windigo. 

In and embarrassingly drunken stupor after a funeral just a few months ago, she’d insisted that Arya help her make sure her vagina wasn’t cursed. 

As far as they could tell, it hadn’t been. But the guy she’d tried dating next had been kidnapped and held in the underworld for three days before they found him. And the magic it took to heal his mind had zapped her clean from it. 

Which was a fair trade, of course, but had been her final straw. No more dating. No more sleeping with men. 

No more demons and no more innocents caught in the crossfire. 

Which made the fact that she was staring at Jon’s ass such a problem. 

Not that she wanted to sleep with Jon, let alone date him. It was, surely, just a product of a long dry spell, and a handsome man around the house, helping. 

Because if she ran Jon off, or worse, Arya and Bran would never forgive her, and she’d never forgive herself.

But still, watching him fix the sink…

“This sink’s been a problem since I was a kid,” He was saying, “I remember your dad use to tell me....” 

But what Dad use to tell him was lost on her as she dreamed about running her nails down his back. 

The girl he’d dated a few years back was a redhead and, she bit her lip, hard, it was a dangerous line of thinking. She wasn’t going to sleep with any more mortals. 

They’d managed Jon living at the manor for an entire month without any demonic activity, despite Sansa’s concerns about bringing a mortal into the house. Her cursed vagina was just the thing to fuck that up for all of them. 

“I can hire a plumber,” She reminded Jon, but he waved her off with a hand. 

“It's not that hard,” He promised, shifting a little and making her think about things that should be hard. Really, this was getting out of hand. “And almost done.” 

Once the silence would have been filled with a ‘that’s what she said’ joke, but they had never been Sansa’s way. It made the house seem quiet and lonely, even though four family members lived there. Jon had been so good at livening up the place now that he was done with his Watch term. 

She’d been so upset when Arya had invited him to live with them. Demon attacks, spell books, even Bran’s strange moods made it no place for a mortal. But assuming that he didn’t run screaming or die when the magic finally reared its ugly head, Sansa could admit that having Jon might actually be worth it. 

But it wasn’t doing anything to help her self imposed celibacy. 

The twist of his torso as he stood up wasn’t either. The workout routines of the Watch had done in all sorts of favors if the lines of his abs were anything to go by. 

“We have a working kitchen sink.” He told her, excitedly, “Now you have to make me lemon bars.” 

She considered, “I can do that, but it will use the last of the eggs, so you can’t be annoyed during breakfast tomorrow.” The large mixing bowl was on a high shelf and she just barely caught herself before she summoned it to her, and instead she actually made the journey to the cabinet 

He smiled, not the smirk he use to share with Robb, or the grin he gives Arya or even the small thing she sometimes adopts during family dinners where the four of them join together. It was his full, real smile. The one she remembers from when they were kids. 

“I didn’t mean right now,” Jon said, catching her wrist, and making it doubly hard to resist telekinetically setting everything up. “I have something I want to show you now.”

She frowned when he grabbed his car keys out of the bowl. She hadn’t been sure how much he really intended to stick around until he’d gone car shopping the other weekend, and made sure to get one that could work with Bran’s chair. 

“Where are we going?” 

“I have something I want to show you.” 

“But…”

“Meera’s upstairs with Bran, Arya’s probably decided to become a costume vigilante and is off somewhere enacting justice,” Sansa tried not to squirm, Arya had gone off to the Underworld today to stab a demon or twelve. Sansa hated when she did that, wandered off on her own. Their powers were stronger together. It should have been power of four, but they were down to three these days. And Arya going around as one was a stressor Sansa wished she didn’t have to deal with. 

But after three years, there wasn’t much Sansa could do to stop it. 

“So we can go and have a pleasant day out.” Jon finished, unaware of Sansa’s wandering thoughts. 

He drove. He’d been away from Wintertown for years and years, and yet he knew exactly where he was going as he took her to a little bistro at the center of town. The day was bright and happy, and occasionally she looked out the big glass store front at the people milling about their lives. 

People who didn’t know that monsters and demons and witches existed outside of nightmares and folk tales meant to scare kids. 

People who might see Sansa, a pretty young woman, out to lunch with a dashing soldier like Jon and assume it was the promise of a fairy tale.

They would not know that Sansa was one of the things that went bump in the night. That Sansa could have lifted ever person and everything in this room up into the air without lifting a finger. Not that her little sister could steal a demon’s face. That her younger brother could see through space and time. That if the world had gone according to plan they’d have a fourth siblings who could freeze things with ice and they’d be charmed. The Charmed Ones, the most powerful witches to stalk the earth. But they’d been reduced to three before that could even begin. 

She tried to concentrate on Jon. He was animatedly discussing his volunteering at the community center, teaching kids music and fencing. But she can’t help but think of whether it would have been Rickon or Robb who got the ice powers. Perhaps both, the cycle might have started over again after they passed four. They would never know. Their powers did not come until they were dead. And the thought, that her older brother would have been able to make it ok, sat heavy in Sansa’s tummy. 

But Jon ordered her lemon cake when she was about to ask the server for the checks. And he paid for both when they were done. And it was hard to be to mournful in the face of that. Then he grasped her hand and pulled her through downtown Wintertown with their fingers intertwined. 

They ended up in a renovated factor in the arts district. And they wandered through, looking at the galleries and boutiques. There was a new age occulty shop inside, and Sansa tried not to read too much into the fact that Jon didn’t object at all to following her inside, and seemed perfectly happy to browse while she took note of a much improved supply of ingredients compared to the place they bought from closer to home, or the stuff Meera seemed to be able to produce wholesale. Being able to spend twenty minutes looking at crystals did not mean you could stand to know you lived in a house full of practicing witches. Let alone that magic was real and people fought demons. 

Jon would not answer when she asked why they were in this part of town, until they got to the second floor, and an empty front with a for rent sign in the window. 

“I was here the other day,” He said, as he produced a key from his pocket, “and I thought this would be a good place for that cafe you always talked about starting up.” 

He guided her inside with a hand on her lower back. 

“The building is owned by the Manderlys, and you know how much they love the Starks, when I called and mentioned it, Wylla almost begged me to take the place off their hands on your behalf. I settled for a private tour.” 

The place was perfect, there was a kitchen that would be more than functional, plenty of space for a counter full of cakes and pastries, and enough room left over for seating that felt cozy but not crowded. 

And in this cute building full of independent fashion shops and even a shop build for a witch, it would be perfect. 

“I don’t know if I…”

“I know its hard, Sansa,” Jon cut her off. “I know you feel like you need to take care of Arya and Bran. But I’m here to help now. And this is your dream. You have the money, and I will make sure you have to time.”

Their were so many reasons this was a bad idea. 

But she didn’t think of any of them as she grabbed Jon and brought his face to her’s in the empty space that would become her cafe. She’d read about old ritual where people would have sex before the old gods to bring about magic. So surely she and Jon, on the floor of her new space was a good omen. A blessing for this venture. 

And she’d get the whole place scrubbed down before she opened up. 

She doesn’t think how she can’t possibly do this. How she has to be at home to remind Arya not to spend days in the Underworld and Bran to come back to the present. How she has to remind them both to check the book before they go after demons, how she has to make sure they have a cupboard stalked full of mandrake root and griffins blood and shade of the evening so they don’t find themselves missing an ingredient in a time of crisis. 

Jon could make sure Arya and Bran ate dinner, that the maid service was paid every month, that everyone’s car was taken in for its proper oil change, but he couldn’t manage the magical side of thing. Jon was a soldier, but not a warrior in the supernatural fight between good and evil. 

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all as they curled up together in an empty storefront, half dressed and well spent, her head on his well muscled chest and his hand running through her hair. 

It didn’t matter that they floor was uncomfortable and that Arya was going to have an absolute conniption when she found out Sansa had slept with their most beloved cousin. 

Because in the moment she felt more content then she had in years. 

And not even the specter of the future or the ghosts of the past could ruin it as she and Jon made themselves presentable and giggled all the way back to the Manor, fingers laced together on his lap the whole drive. 

He paused on the front stoop to pull her into one long lingering kiss. And then opened the door into hell. 

Because Sansa Stark had a cursed vagina, and had apparently cursed Jon with it. 

An energy ball when careening out, and Sansa and Jon both just barely managed to avoid it. 

Sansa didn’t even think twice, she ran in to find Arya, with her own face but in tattered black clothing showing she’d recently been in the Underworld and undercover. She was flinging daggers and potions left and right at the demons that filled the entry hallway. 

Bran sat in the middle, his growling wolf in front of him, snapping at any demons that got to close. Meera was nowhere to be seen, but given that potion bottles seemed to be appearing in thin air, thrown at various demons, it seemed logical to assume she’d gone invisible, as was her way. 

Sansa was sure that later she’d have to deal with the fact that Jon knew about magic, that her love had lead him directly into danger. That the chances of him not wanting anything to do with his Stark cousins in the face of this dangerous was high. 

But she had to push that pain away. 

Because there were demons that she needed to get the hell away from her family. 

She flung a set of fireballs back at their originators, and then sent a broken piece of wood that had come from a recently destroyed side table into another one’s eye. 

She could not really ruminate in the satisfaction of them breaking into flames. 

Because she had to send Arya’s knife back to Arya so she could defend herself against, because she had to send the guy leaning over Bran into the chandelier. Because she had to make sure that she didn’t throw anything into an invisible Meera. 

Because she had to try not to die. 

She was so use to this, despite the month long reprieve. That she forgot to keep track of Jon, until a few demon shimmered behind her. And she turned in time to see Arya raise her knife and Meera make herself visible. 

But the demons’ attention was on Jon. 

More than one person screamed. Sansa was one of them, Jon was not. 

He raised a hand, but not in some ill gotten attempt at self defense. Instead, the hand that Sansa noticed before was covered in a burn mark, flexed. And out of it flew a greyish blueish mist that firmed up over the demon as solid ice, before it and the demon shattered. With his other hand he released a line of flames at one of the other demons.

The last two shared a look, and then dodged Jon’s next waves of attack. 

One ducked low towards Jon, and he held up both hands again, curved together and in a ring of ice and fire a sword formed in his hands. The pommel was shaped like a white wolf, the blade was a constantly shifting pattern of silver waves. 

He wielded it without a second thought, swiping at one demon and then the other one handed. As though he’d spend the past five years in some medieval army, not the modern border Watch. 

When all the demons were gone, he lowered his hands, but the sword did not vanish. And he stared at his cousins as they all stared at him in silence. 

“You know.” Meera started, after five minutes of silence. When even the smoking scorch marks had stopped smoking. “The first first time Dad met the Starks was when your mom saved him from a demon attack.”

It took far too long for Jon to realize she was talking to him. 

“My mom didn’t fight demons,” He said. Which was true. The Starks had the blood of the first men, but any and all that was magical had been lost. They hadn’t discovered their powers until after Mom had died. 

“Of course she did.” Meera said with a sort of half smile. “Dad use to love practicing magic with the Starks. He loves to tell stories of fighting with Brandon and Benjen and Lyanna and Ned.” 

“Dad didn’t fight demons.” Arya said. 

“He did, actually,” Meera said, looking at her feet. “Maybe I should call _my_ dad.” 

They sat in the parlor when Howland Reed showed up and explained that magic wasn’t some far off fate from their mother’s family, but instead a long held legacies of their father. A father who had himself been Charmed along with Jon’s mother and Uncle Brandon and Uncle Ben, before dark magic had gotten Uncle Brandon, Aunt Lyanna and Grandpa Rickard killed, and Ned Stark had forsworn magic, save for binding all of their powers at birth. 

And that, in the face of no fourth siblings to be Charmed with, apparently a cousin like Jon might be able to do, because the power set aligned, and the personal, magical, and blood connection was strong. 

Sansa, Arya, and Meera all sat on different couches and chairs, awkward and closed off while Howland, the proper magical patriarch, sat in his own chair and commanded the room with his explanations. 

It was all unbelievable. And she couldn’t force away an anger at her father for leaving them so unprepared for this. Howland had at least offered help in the form of Meera and Jojen as magical guides. But Dad hadn’t left behind even a clue. 

Jon stood in the corner, still as a statue. The swirling of the blade in his magical store was the only movement to be found, even when the story of Aunt Lyanna coming under the sway of the evil Targaryen coven was brought up. His grey eyes were hard and his long face a blank mask. She’d thought earlier that his face was so expressive and caring as they’d laid together. It felt like forever ago now. She wondered if he’d found that store front when he was visiting the magic shop their. It made since for their apparently a witch all along cousin. 

She couldn’t be mad at him. They’d lied just as much as him, apparently. But she did wonder what it meant. 

When Howland was done, Arya stormed off, but promised she wouldn’t leave the Manor and Bran disappeared into time. 

Sansa reread the article in the Book of Shadows about the Charmed Ones. Ice powers, that might have belonged to Robb or Rickon, but definitely belonged to Jon. 

She didn’t know he’d moved until she felt the couch dip beside her. 

She smiled, a forced sort of thing. “Since Howland thinks we can make you Charmed with us.” She said, “I was looking to see what I could find about that ritual.” 

“Sansa,” He starts, and something about the half sob reminds him of his voice when they made love earlier. The vulnerability, she decides, after a bit of consideration. He sounds vulnerable now, like he did then. “You don’t want me in your coven.” 

“Of course we do,” She said, “Starks are meant to be Charmed. And we need four.” 

“I’m not a Stark.” It sounded like admitting it was crushing. 

“Of course you are.”

“No,” He shook his head, “and held out his hand, the one without the burn marks, a flame danced to life in it. “Targaryen witches are a dark breed, and they play in fire.” He held up his other hand, “They say the most powerful of them are immune to it in all its forms. I am not one of those.” 

“The fire, the ice, the sword,” Sansa started, “Jon I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I didn’t do the sword,” He said with a dismissive wave, “It was a gift from Jeor Mormont.”

“Why did the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch give you a magic sword?” She asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. 

“Because their are demons beyond the Wall,” He said, “Strange monsters beautiful faces and inhuman language that...bring corpses back to life.” He looked far away for a second. “They are afraid of fire and dragon steel. I got the sword when I killed some for the Lord Commander.” 

Jon had never let on that his time at the Wall had been supernatural. 

“The doctor their, Aemon, he was a Targaryen.” He continued on, “He was the nicest of them I ever met. And he taught me some about the fire powers.” He shook his head. 

“You’ve met others?”

He nodded, but didn’t expand, “They are dark and powerful magics, Sansa. I thought if I came home I could keep them at bay. If I had known...” 

Sansa grasped his burned hand, the one with the ice powers that had long blessed the Stark line according to Howland. 

“Yes,” She agreed, “If you had known we could form the power of four, the four of us could have worked together to keep the Targaryens down.” 

“You can’t mean that,” He said, but his grip on her hand was tight, like if she let go, he’d fall of the edge of the Earth. “Think about what my Father did to my mother 

“Of course I mean it.” Sansa said, “We’re Starks, all four of us. We’re magic. You have the power of ice. Nothing the Targaryens can do can overcome the Charmed Ones. Your father fell to Stark magics before. And with you on our side, we have an inside man.” She reached over and brushed her lips on his cheek. He turned his head almost like a test, and she caught his lips on her’s, kissed them like the future depended on it. 

Witches in fairy tales never got the handsome princes. But all princes in fairy tales were good for was saving helpless damsels. Sansa needed saving sometimes. But sometimes she did the saving. Equality and balance and a partnership of love and family and magic. 

And one day she would tell her own fairy tales to her own little Starks about how witches could find something like happily ever after with other witches. 

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my [tumblr](http://darkmagyk.tumblr.com/).


End file.
